This Friday brings the release of Mortal Kombat, which the Warner Bros. brass are hoping will keep their winning streak going for at least a little longer. Indeed, Wonder Woman 1984, The Little Things, Tom & Jerry and Godzilla vs. Kong all managed to top the domestic box office in their opening weekends as well as scoring big viewership numbers on HBO Max, a trend the video game adaptation will be looking to continue.
Ever since the first trailer dropped, Mortal Kombat has been riding a steady wave of buzz and momentum, but the lingering question has always been how well it will fare with audiences who aren’t familiar or even particularly interested in the source material. The movie opened internationally a couple of weeks back, and the general consensus was that it’s a fun martial arts actioner, but the uninitiated might not be quite as enthusiastic as longtime fans.
The Stateside review embargo has yet to lift, but some overseas critics have found their opinions making their way onto Rotten Tomatoes, and Mortal Kombat is currently sitting on a score of 67% at the time of writing. It’s early days, but still encouraging when you consider the highest-rated video game movie ever on the aggregation site is Detective Pikachu with 68%, so if Simon McQuoid’s feature debut maintains the current trajectory, it could go down as one of the best console-to-screen translations ever.
Of course, the studio will be a lot more interested in the bottom line, and it’s hard to imagine any other scenario than Mortal Kombat topping the box office this weekend, while there are no doubt already plans being formulated behind the scenes over potential directions for sequels to head in.